The Beach in Turkey

The flight to Izmir was short and sweet. Çesme was not the final destination, as I had initially thought. Ilica beach, were we were going, is a little south of Çesme.

Upon arrival, to be honest, it was a bit drab. It was about an hour from the Izmir airport and cost way too much for a cab ride, but when the woman wants beach, she get gets beach.

That’s how I roll.

It was cloudy the morning and we decided the hotel Del Mar was unacceptable. Never trust random internet booking sites. It’s nothing worse than when the pictures of the hotel online show a delightful pool and an ocean view when in actuality, it’s across the street and the pool has been out of service for ages. I scoffed, probably turned on the British snootiness and asked the bell hop to hold on to our bags while we ‘made a few phone calls.’

So we went for a walk to the In Kim on the beach and got room with an ocean view.

I’m a terrible back packer.

As soon as the sun came out later in the morning the sea glowed turquoise and mountains loomed in the distance around the cream coloured villas dotting the shore across the bay.

We spent the afternoon walking around the hotels and bars, drinking Efes Pilsner and ended up the Sheraton.

We were out on the beach for a little, but decided to check out the spa services at the nice hotel. I still don’t understand how Starwood decided to brand this monstrosity on the coast a Sheraton. It was enormous, ornate, and ostentatious with a geo-thermal spa and a bar that charged 24 turkish lire for a manhattan. Whatever the case, the walk back along the beach as the sun set behind our peninsula.

It was wonderful.

The next we spent the next day inside recovering from the previous day’s sunburn. It was perfect. I drank whiskey from wake and we had a lovely kebap dinner at one of the places where they hawk you in. We sat next to a couple, the dude Canadian, the lady Australian.

“Where in Canadia are you from?”

“I’m from Whistler. It’s in BC. Do you know it?”

“Oh. Whistler? They do a little winter sports over there or something, huh?”

He didn’t to get my sarcasm.

The next day we found this one place Servit that did kebaps with delicious chili seared onions and grilled peppers and bulgar wheat and the softest lavosh in the world with lemon drenched arugula and cumin in a dish like cracked black pepper. We went back a few times. For 20 Lire it was the best meal I’d had since the Norfolk.

We lazed around the beach, only going in the chilly ocean breifly and drinking beer from the local stands since it was so absolutely bloody expensive at the hotel.

All we really did was sleep and drink and eat and a few other things.

We stopped back to the onion place, I got some new shorts since my khaki cargos patched with tent canvas did not appease The Girl’s sense of fashion.

It was nice being at the beach again, if only for a little.

We arrived in Istanbul late Thursday night, the seventh, after a four day stay, and The Girl had to shove off to Munich early in the morning. I saw her off and situated myself in Istanbul. I left my luggage at the front desk of the shitty hotel we booked at the airport and found I was back Sultanhamet.

So I did some exploring.

Athens to Berlin: 53.99e
Berlin to Athens: 77.99e